Chemical Reactions
This process occurs when minerals like iron react with oxygen, often turning rocks a rusty red.
What is Oxidation?
This type of weathering happens when evaporating water leaves behind crystals that push against the sides of rock pores.
What is Salt Wedging?
This specific zone in the soil is where minerals are dissolved by rainwater and moved downward.
What is the Zone of Leaching?
This 1930s disaster was caused by a combination of drought and a lack of vegetation to hold soil in place.
What was the Dust Bowl?
Physical weathering speeds up chemical weathering because it increases this specific measurement of a rock.
What is Surface Area?
In this process, water pulls ions like calcium directly out of a mineral, often creating caves in limestone.
What is Dissolution?
This is the general term for any process that breaks rock into smaller pieces without changing its chemical makeup.
What is Physical or Mechanical Weathering?
Located below the leaching zone, this area is where the dissolved minerals finally settle or precipitate.
What is the Zone of Accumulation?
Geologists consider this the most important factor in determining how thick a layer of soil will grow.
What is Climate?
This specific chemical reaction occurs when minerals like feldspar react with water to transform into clay.
What is Hydrolysis?
This occurs when a mineral absorbs water into its crystal structure, causing it to swell and weaken.
What is Hydration?
Salt wedging is most likely to be a major factor in these two types of environments.
What are Arid (dry) and Coastal environments?
These two living things are essential in wet soils to help decompose matter and create organic material.
What are Plants and Microbes?
This is why desert soils are typically thinner and have less organic material than forest soils.
What is a lack of water (which limits plant growth and microbe activity)?
Breaking a large rock into smaller pieces provides these for chemical weathering to "attack."
What are Fresh Surfaces?